A native of Kabato District, Hokkaidō and graduate of Hokkaido University, he was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 1990 as an independent. He later joined first the Japan Socialist Party and then the DPJ. In 2003 he left the Diet to run for governorship of Hokkaido, which was unsuccessful. In the same year he ran for the Hokkaido 4th district in the House of Representatives and was elected. In September 2011 he was appointed as Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry in the cabinet of newly appointed prime minister Yoshihiko Noda.[1]
He resigned after being criticised for making controversial comments during his visit to the exclusion zone of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster on 9 September. He compared the vicinity of the plant to a ghost town,[2] and on the previous day, jokingly mimicked rubbing his jacket on a journalist while telling him "I'll give you radiation."[3]
^"選挙区開票速報:北海道ー2016参議院" [Hokkaido at-large district election results, 2016 House of Councillors election] (in Japanese). Asahi Shimbun. Retrieved 9 March 2018.